However, if your Mac is on wifi too, I could see that there could be some problems, but a 'n' (or 'ac') grade wifi should be able to handle it. Terramaster F5-422 Network Storage Server. Synology DiskStation DS220j Well-rounded, middle-ground cloud storage.

I'm always surprised by how little bandwidth it uses. Asustor Lockerstor 2 Best overall personal cloud storage device.

In fact, with the Mac on Ethernet, it can download new videos from the iTunes Store while serving up content from the NAS to the ATV. I'm on 802.11n now, and it's handling 1080p streams no problem (don't remember if I tried that on the 'g' wifi). What Are the Best Streaming Devices to Play Kodi Content x86 desktop computers Amazon Fire TV Cube (via side loader software) Xbox Series X/ Xbox One S /Xbox 360 Raspberry Pi Apple TV (via side. Even with my older 802.11g network, my Mac mini (hooked up to Ethernet and thus hooked up 'closely' to the NAS) could pull the files off the NAS and stream them (over wifi) to the ATV. Let me thrown my $0.02 in by saying that unless you're running your iMac over wi-fi, this will work fine. Others have pointed out some options, like using ATV2+Plex, or PlexConnect (which is VERY difficult to setup). To answer the op's exact question, 'No, ATV is not intelligent enough to stream directly from a NAS'.

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